


Making it

by whereJIJisalive



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, Self-Harm, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, this fic is a downer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 01:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3402644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereJIJisalive/pseuds/whereJIJisalive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the day of Katie's funeral Aaron pays a visit to Jackson's grave. His state of mind leaves much to be desired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making it

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on my phone and it's three thirty in the morning so you'll have to excuse me.
> 
> My interpretation of Aaron's motivations in Thursday's episode, coming from someone who doesn't ship Robert/Aaron.

All he could do to quiet his mind was to press on that wound he had reopened in his palm. It was the only thing that made him keep moving.

The flowers he had bought didn't smell like anything, but then again they might as well have been plastic for all he knew. It was half an hour before the ceremony and people were beginning to gather outside the church. He went the long way around to keep any of them from spotting him, and as he headed down to Jackson's grave he realized he should have bought flowers for Katie's too. It was the least he could do.

After looking around to see if the coast was clear, as if he was doing something forbidden, he laid the flowers down on the grave. The cliché of time healing wounds was true in a manner of speaking, in that the pain had dulled and the memories become less vivid, but in a time like this, when all his senses were heightened and his guilt fresh, the pain came rushing back like it had all been yesterday.

It was fanciful to think that it would ever feel any different, that he would ever be able to handle pain with anything but more pain. 

He could have bought roses. He could have felt the pain as their thorns dug into his flesh. That would have been easier.

He sometimes stood there, staring at Jackson's epitaph, and tried to remember. He would make himself remember good things, happy things about Jackson. The good things they'd had were laughably few. If he thought hard enough he would relive them. For some reason, standing there gave him strength. Wiping his tears, he looked towards the sky, like a greeting, and trudged up back around the church. 

000

The phrase 'make it or break it' had always resonated with him. Make your father love you or you'll never see him again. Make your sexuality go away or you'll hurt everyone you care about. Come out or go to prison. Make Jackson see that life is worth living or watch him die at your hands. Make yourself believe that life is worth living or succumb to the voice in your head that tells you no matter what you do, your past sins will always catch up to you.

He hadn't always made it. And sometimes that had been for the best. But today, this day, coming clean about the affair, about Katie, he knew from the start what that was.

It was his own way of atoning for all of his sins while at the same time feeding the guilt and the pain that some days kept him upright. That Robert tried to stop him only made him more desperate. Even if Robert was right. Even if he was being selfish, making everyone else suffer because he couldn't stand not to be. On some level he realized this about himself. From that standpoint, it made sense why he had ended up falling in love with Robert.

Because somewhere, he had known, that Robert would be very good at hurting him. That maybe if he had Robert he could stop hurting himself.

 


End file.
